Out of the poisoned wastes in the east he drifted like a decrepit dirigible, a gasbag so bilious and vile the earth though wounded repelled his pustulent flesh. Upon him clung the remains of a survival suit that had obviously failed its purpose, unsurprising given the uncounted plumes of the catastrophically bombed and abandoned power plants belching their searing smoke across the continent, the cursed heirlooms of humanity’s outrageously heedless forebears.

That he had in some fashion died was unmistakable, given the shredded scraps that were all that remained of his legs; just as unmistakably, some demonic bargain kept his malignant being afloat, an inhuman intelligence puppeting his limbs for one last gruesome show. 

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